Sherry and Margaret are two good looking women of a similar age that get mistaken for each other frequently.
They have a similar build, similar hair style, and have similar smiles. Though unrelated they are often taken for sisters when they are together. It's not that they are trying to look alike, it's just that sometimes people get confused about who they are.
As someone who has grown up getting confused for his brother, I know that this can be frustrating sometimes. But what happens in business when our customers can't tell us apart from our competition?
In business, sometimes we get competitors that try to look like us. They see our success and feel that they can copy it. They might carry similar products or offer similar services. They might try to cater to our customers and try to take our business for their own. Many small businesses face stiff competition on a daily basis.
There are the huge box stores trying to drive up their sales with customers from our little niche market. There are the mid-size businesses that might be trying to put us out of business by trying to occupy our "space." There are those people in our own industries that have decided that they have the recipe for success and want to replicate that with franchises or multiple businesses and dominate the market place. Perhaps it's an online startup that wants to offer the same products and services as us at ridiculously low prices.
There never seems to have been a time in history when small business has faced the competitive threats as great as the ones we face right now. Across North America, malls are emptying, downtowns are struggling and small businesses are only marginally surviving.
As the owner of a small business venture, how do you survive and even thrive in the face of such competition? Weekly, I hear from small business owners, who are struggling with these threats of the competitive forces. The obvious fact is that you can't look just like your competition or you are going to have problems.
In order to survive and even thrive in the face of all this competition, we need to clearly understand what is going on in the marketplace and come up with a strategy that we can use to differentiate ourselves from our competition.
In business we usually start with a SWOT Analysis. In other words, we must look at the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats that are facing us and our industry.
Strengths
We need to figure out what we are great at. What do we do better than our competition? What do we have that gives us an advantage?
Is it our people, our strategies, our location, or our ability to change? Why do our best customers choose to buy from us?
We always want to build from our strengths. However, if we are just a "me too" business, and we don't have an advantage, we had better start looking at what we could do that would set us apart!
Weaknesses
What does our competition do better than us? Why are we losing customers? What is preventing us from really reaching our full potential?
Is it our team, our finances, our strategies? What are we missing?
Identifying our weaknesses allows us to understand where we need to change or strengthen to allow us to compete better.
Opportunities
What opportunities do we have right now that would change our business and give us an advantage over our competition? What service do we see in the marketplace that we could perform that no one else is doing? How can we grow the business or pivot the business to take advantage of these opportunities?
Many entrepreneurs can see so many opportunities that it makes their heads spin. The challenge is to focus on one or two of the best opportunities and investigate them to see if we can satisfy the necessary requirements.
Threats
What are the threats facing our business, our industry? Perhaps it's the low cost competitor, or changes in the regulatory environment. Maybe it's the threat of a loss of some key people? What do we need to be aware of that could possibly set our business back?
For small businesses we need to continuously look for ways that can make us different from the competition. Things we can do that will get our customers coming back to our business each and every time they purchase our products or services.
We need to offer exceptional value in our marketplace so that we can own the "space." We need to be able to develop and nurture relationships with our customers in a technological world that is starved for real face time.
Sherry and Margaret don't need to compete with each other because they have both developed and nurtured relationships that have created value for their stakeholders, their husbands, families and employers. Their "customers" always come back to them as the unique individuals they are, not as a "look alike."
As a small business owners what are you doing that creates so much value for your customers that no matter what happens they will always be loyal to you?
Dave Fuller grew up looking like his brother but now has differentiated himself by writing the book Profit Yourself Healthy, and working as a certified professional business coach. Email [email protected].
